Our Planet

The Oldest Surviving Aerial Photo was Taken in 1860

Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It (1860)

On October 13, 1860, the early American photographer James Wallace Black (February 10, 1825 – January 5, 1896) climbed into a hot air balloon (named Queen of the Air) with his camera, and photographed Boston from a hot-air balloon at 1,200 feet (around 365 meters). On that day, Black took 8 plates of glass negative; 10 1/16 x 7 15/16 in, but only one good print resulted, which the photographer entitled “Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It”. Today, it remains the oldest surviving aerial photo.

Black was not the first person to take aerial photos: two years ago, French photographer (and also caricaturist, journalist, novelist, and “balloonist”) Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (6 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar, who photographed Victor Hugo on his death-bed in 1885, took photographs of Paris from a hot air balloon too. But the Frenchman’s photos were lost many years ago.

A new star in heavens: how Crab Nebula was born

This is how the Crab Nebula was born: in 1054 A.D, a new, very bright star has appeared in Earth’s sky, in the constellation Taurus. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Arab astronomers observed the event and noted: “a new bright star emerged in the heavens”. The star was so bright: for nearly three weeks, it was visible even during the daytime, under the hot, shiny summer sun, and remained visible for around two years (653 days to be exact). Today, we know that that “heavenly star” was actually a supernova (SN 1054, see notes 1), and its remnant is what we now know as the Crab Nebula today (catalog designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A).

Earth Wind Map: See Current Wind Speeds all over the Earth

This is so cool! With this tool, called “Earth Wind Map”, an animated map of global wind, weather, and ocean conditions, you can see current wind speeds all over the Earth, in real-time!

Bomb Cyclone from space [amazing NASA Image]

On January 4, 2018, NASA has published an amazing GeoColor (see notes 1) image of the so-called “Bomb Cyclone”, a very powerful storm off the East coast of the United States. It was taken from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) GOES-16 satellite (previously known as GOES-R) (see notes 2).

Equinoxes and Solstices from Space

Every year, there are two Equinoxes (around March 20 and September 23) and two Solstices (on about June 21 and December 21). Spring and autumn start with an equinox – daylight, and nighttime are of approximately equal duration all over the Earth during Equinoxes. Winter and summer start with a solstice – daylight time is the longest of the year during the summer solstice, and obviously, the night time is the longest during the winter solstice.

The video below, published by NASA Earth Observatory, is a time-lapse from geosynchronous orbit (see notes 1) that shows the four changes of the seasons, related to the position of sunlight on the planet.

Earth and Moon in the same photo

Earth and Moon as seen by OSIRIS-REx. October 2, 2017.

An amazing image showing both the Earth and Moon. The distance between our planet and its satellite is actually much more than many would conceptualize. It is 384,400 kilometers (about 239,000 miles) on average, but as usual, our brains cannot deal with such large numbers. Only seeing that distance makes us realize how far even the closest body in the solar system to us – and gives some clues about how big is our Solar system actually. What’s more, we’ve actually been there, humanity managed to cover that vast distance and walked on the moon!

10 Most Beautiful Earth Photos Taken From the International Space Station in 2017

Istanbul from International Space Station. December 10, 2017

Here are the top ten most beautiful Earth photos taken by the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in 2017. Which one is your favorite? Or if your favorite image was not listed here, please leave a comment below. To see all images taken from the International Space Station and published by NASA, visit Space Station Images.

The hottest place in the Universe exists on Earth

The hottest place in the Universe is on Earth and it is much hotter than a supernova

The hottest place in the Universe exists here on Earth, like the coldest place in the Universe. Both these extreme temperatures are not natural, they are human-made. The coldest temperature was achieved in the German physicist and professor of physics Wolfgang Ketterle’s laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The hottest temperature, also recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records, was achieved at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

On 13 August 2012 scientists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, Geneva, Switzerland, announced that they had achieved temperatures of over 5 trillion K and perhaps as high as 5.5 trillion K (more than 9.9 trillion °F). The team had been using the ALICE experiment to smash together lead ions at 99% of the speed of light to create a quark-gluon plasma – an exotic state of matter believed to have filled the universe just after the Big Bang.

NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin’s Rockets comparison

NASA, SpaceX Blue Origin rockets comparison

Tech Insider published a video titled “How NASA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin’s Monster Rockets Compare”. Still, the old Saturn V, which was used by NASA between 1967 and 1973 and took humans to the Moon, is the biggest and strongest rocket ever built. But new rockets are coming and that’s finally about the change. Here is the past and future monster rockets comparison:

The oldest fossils suggest that life should be common in the Universe

Life should be common in the Universe - Otherworldly plant life growing on an alien planet in a distant universe.

Are we alone in the Universe? Or do any other life forms exist out there? A new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS, see notes 1) suggests that life emerged so early on Earth, so it should be widespread. In other words, the Universe should be filled with life.

The story goes back to the year 1982 when UCLA Scholar and Pioneer in Study of the Evolution of Life, J. William Schopf collected 3.465-billion-year-old fossils from the Apex Chert in Western Australia, and interpreted them as early life. When he described the fossils in the journal Science in 1993, critics argued that they were not early lifeforms – they were just odd minerals that only looked like biological specimens.